


we might never make it out

by plinys



Category: Still Star-Crossed (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Road Trip, F/M, Las Vegas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-01
Updated: 2017-07-01
Packaged: 2018-11-22 02:38:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11370834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plinys/pseuds/plinys
Summary: Romeo and Juliet decide to run away to Vegas and elope. Which means, road trip time for Rosaline and Benvolio as they race across the country to stop the two of them. And maybe happen to find themselves along the way.





	we might never make it out

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AllisonSwan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllisonSwan/gifts), [TheSushiMonster](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSushiMonster/gifts).



> this is dedicated to shruti and maii mostly, and to everyone else who enabled me over on twitter, and those who reblogged my drabble on tumblr, because I turned my tiny drabble into a full length fic and now y'all have to live with that.

It all starts with a text.

Or technically a SnapChat, because Juliet has always been a SnapChat sort of girl, the type to use any excuse to take a cute selfie and slap a few words over it. Normally something Rosaline found endearing and cute.

That is until she gets one that reads:  _ love y’all and love this man!!! guess who is eloping lol XOXO VEGAS BOUND!!! _

At first she thinks it’s a joke, because it feels like a joke, because no rational person would ever consider eloping to Las Vegas a good idea. 

Except, that would involve Juliet being a rational person, not one who just turned eighteen and was in love with a boy that wore leather jackets and smoked expensive cigarettes, all in an attempt to pretend that he was a bad boy. 

The truth is confirmed three texts later.  

Juliet’s last text, three frowny face emojis, and the words  _ I thought you’d be happy for me _ , does nothing to assuage the ache in her chest. She loves Juliet dearly; she often times felt more like a sister rather than a cousin. She only wants what is best for Juliet, and running off to Vegas to marry a Montague, of all people, is not what is best for her. 

Not that running off to Las Vegas with any man was a good idea, but that was beyond the point. 

According to her GPS, it would take them a little under twenty-five hours of driving to get there if they drove straight through, which she doubted they could manage. They’d need to stop to sleep at least twice. Which mean, she had at least forty-eight hours to convince Juliet that this was a mistake. 

On an impulse she looks up flights on her phone, grimacing at the number that comes back at her, though she should have expected that, last minute flights were never cheap. 

It it’s just -

She doesn’t know what to do.

Rosaline was always the type to know what to do, she was the one people looked to for advice.

This new feeling of being lost and unsure isn’t something she’s able to handle.

Suddenly sitting in a coffee shop to work on her novel seems like an impossible task; being in public is an impossible task. She needs to be home and planning and probably call Livia and Isabella to see if Juliet told either of them anymore and- 

She stands abruptly, which is her first mistake.

Staring down at her phone and not looking when she stands up so that she knocks into the person walking by the table. Thankfully they didn’t have coffee in their hands to spill, just a book bag that hits the floor with a loud noise.

“I’m so sorry, I wasn’t looking where I was-” she starts to say only to look up at just who she had bumped into. Suddenly the apology dies on her lips. “You!”

“Me?”

Benvolio Montague.

Because she hadn’t had enough Montague nonsense for one day. 

Clearly not.

“Your cousin is a bad influence on mine,” Rosaline says, because she needs to rant about this to someone and he’s there. He’s there and it’s so easy to take the frustration she feels out on him. “She’s eloping! Running away to Vegas with a  _ Montague  _ of all people-”

“Hey now!”

“-And now I have to stop her, but flights are expensive and my car is in the shop, and honestly of all times this had to happen it would be now, I just-” 

“Slow down,” he says.

And for some reason she does.

Maybe it’s the way he says it, almost soft, almost concerned, that causes her to slow down.

To take a deep breath.

To remember that she is supposed to be the rational one here.

“Romeo and Juliet at eloping,” he asks.

“Yes, according to the messages she just sent me. They’re running away to Vegas together.” 

“Give me a second,” he says, holding up one finger before digging his phone of out his pocket. He steps away when he presses the phone to his ear, but she can hear him say, “Please tell me you didn’t-” just before he steps outside of the coffee shop’s doors, which she assumes means he’s called Romeo. 

She highly doubted anything Benvolio could say on the phone would change things, which meant, brief interlude of ranting aside she still needed to come up with a plan.

Step one of which was pack all of her back things into her bag, and drink down the rest of her coffee. 

Step two was leave the coffee shop and head home to-

A hand on her wrist when she exits the shop stops her, holding her in place, and she shoots him a glare instinctively, but he’s still on the phone, saying, “Your dad will literally kill you,” and “Don’t make me chase you down, come on, man.” 

And so she waits.

Waits there beside him, her backpack weighing heavy on her shoulders, a hand warm on her wrist, as her mind begins to turn and plan. 

Only stopping when finally her wrist is released just as he says, “You weren’t lying.”

“Why would I lie about that?”

Benvolio shrugs. 

It doesn’t mean anything.

She shouldn’t let it mean anything. 

“Well, this is my fuck up of a cousin too.” There’s something about the way he says it, both joking and fond at the same time, “How about we go on a little road trip, Capulet?”

“Do you have a car?”

There’s something off about the way he says, “Of course, I have a car.”

But she doesn’t focus on that.

Instead she focuses on the offer. Real and sincere even though he said in that almost a joke tone. 

It’s not the worst option. 

It’s a car, a way to get there, and someone with a mutual interest.

What other option did she have? 

Livia didn’t have a car. 

Letting her aunt and uncle know what was going on was out of the question. 

Honestly the only person she really knew with a car was Escalus and despite the fact that they had broken up on good terms and agreed to be friends, she had a feeling that spending twenty-five hours in a car with him would not be the easiest of experiences.

Not that spending the drive with a Montague, even the most tolerable of them, felt like a fun idea either. 

But it was better than nothing.

Maybe together they would have a chance.

If she could talk sense into Juliet, and he could talk some sense into Romeo then… 

Just maybe.

“Alright.”

“Alright?”

“Let’s go on a road trip.”

 

*

 

This is a bad idea.

It feels like a bad idea.

But a bad idea to stop an even worse idea can’t really be that  _ bad,  _ right?

At least that’s what she tells herself when Benvolio pulls up in a car far nicer than what she had expected. She had pictured something old and beat up when he said he had a car, not a Porsche. 

“I guess you clean up after all,” she says by way of greeting when he steps out of the car.

“Don’t sound too surprised, Capulet.” 

“It’s pleasantly. I assure you.”

She lets him take her bags when he offers too, even though a part of her wants to insist that she doesn’t need his help, that she has this under control. 

Instead she just slips into the passenger seat.

He joins her in the car a moment later. 

“So how long do we got?

“If we drive straight,” she says, “It’s a little over twenty-five hours.” 

“Fuck me,” Benvolio says. Though when she shoots him a look he quickly shoots her back a sort of half grin, “That’s a joke.”

“I was aware it was a joke.” 

She had expected things to get awkward, but not so soon, they weren’t even out of the city yet, and already Benvolio is reaching forward to turn up the music so that the lack of conversation isn’t awkward.

It’s going to be a long ride at this rate.

 

*

 

Somewhere during the second hour Juliet sends her another snapchat. A picture of her and Romeo in some diner, faces squished together into the frame a milkshake with two straws between them.

Innocent enough.

Were in not for the caption underneath:  _ can we start the honeymoon now _ ? 

She sends a snapchat of her own, aiming for casual, no need to alarm Juliet and have her convince Romeo to drive them even faster. A thumbs up, and a reminder to  _ be safe _ , is about all she can manage. 

Juliet’s message is back too quickly, a wild grin, the rest of the diner in the frame as her caption asks _ : when am I not safe lol???  _

“Staring at her messages won’t make it easier to find out where they are,” Benvolio says.

Rosaline can’t help help from jolting forward, instantly slamming her face down on her leg so that he can’t see it. Juliet’s smiling face disappears as the eight second message times out away from view.

“Don’t look at my messages.”

“I’m driving,” Benvolio points out, obviously, “I’m watching the road.”

“You better be, I don’t plan to die in here,” she says, but it’s still a bit defensive. Her hand itching to go back to her phone to look at whatever other messages Juliet has uploaded. Regretting now that she taught her how to put on ghost mode in SnapChat. 

He snorts. 

Not a laugh; nothing sincere.

This is why people didn’t like Montagues. 

Even when they weren’t convincing her cousin to elope with them, they were nothing but trouble, Benvolio was surely proof of that. Surely.  Because thinking about the alternative was something Rosaline couldn’t handle. 

“I’m just concerned,” she says after a moment. 

Watching as he nods a bit at that, at least here they seem to understand each other.  “Me too.” 

She’s so used to being the one that cares, the one that has to try and make things better, the one with the level head. That for once being anything other than that seems like a lot more than she can handle. 

It’s good to have someone else that agrees with her, that understand why they’re doing this, that can clearly see what a mistake all of this is. 

Maybe she shouldn’t be so harsh on him. He had been the one to agree to drive across the country with her at a moment's notice. 

“We know where they’re going,” Benvolio speaks up breaking the brief silence between them, “I’ll keep driving and we’ll catch up with them, or maybe even beat them if I drive through the night. Then it’s just hunting through Vegas until we find them. Can’t be that hard, right?” 

“Right.”

Her phone vibrates against her thigh and she looks away from Benvolio pointedly tilting the phone out of his line of sight even though now his eyes are most steadily fixed on the road. 

Though when she opens her phone she can’t help but mutter a low curse, Juliet’s photo seems innocent enough, Romeo posing with a plate of waffles, but it’s the caption that comes with us that gives her pause:  _ romeo wants to know why you’re in his dads car lol ???  _

 

 

*

 

“Distract me.”

“What,” she says. She’d been looking out the window trying to pretend that she was anywhere but there, when he pulls her out of her thoughts. She blames her lack of eloquence on that. 

“Distract me,” he repeats, “I’m having a hard time focusing on the road, unless you want us to pull over and get even further behind...” 

“Right okay,” she can do this.

She needs to keep him awake, so they can keep going.

It shouldn’t be too hard, and yet suddenly, she can’t seem to think of anything at all. 

“Capulet?” 

“I think I’m going to drop out of school.”

She hadn’t meant to say that, but the words were out there now. Populating the space between them. The silence that follows more oppressive than it had been before. 

When Benvolio says, “You’re joking.”

She wishes that she was.

She hadn’t told anyone about this, yet. It had just been a small thought in the back of her head, 

“No.”

“No,” he echoes, “Don’t you just have a year left?”

She doesn’t ask how he knows this. How long he has been paying attention to her life. They run in similar circles she supposes, mirrors of each other, that only ever overlapped when Romeo and Juliet started all of this months before. 

Strangely enough he feels like the one person she can talk to about this. 

The one person who couldn’t judge her for this.

“I do,” she acknowledges, “Which is another thirty thousand dollars I don’t have. I mean, technically I have it, but Livia wants to go to medical school, and that’s not… There’s no way we could afford both, not with what we have left. She told she could take out loans, but I don’t want to be the person that ruins her dream, so I-”

“So you’re ruining yours?”

“That’s different.”

“How?”

She doesn’t have an answer to that question. Not really.

It just is.

Livia is her sister, she’s going to go far, and do amazing things and Rosaline refuses to get in the way of. She cares about her too much for that. 

“It’s my job to look after her,” Rosaline says with finality, because this is nothing else is the one truth that she will stand by. “It’s my job to look after everyone.”

She’s just not expecting his answer, a moment later, steady and sure, “I get that.”

 

*

 

They stop for gas in some town that she doesn’t know the name of, a little pitstop off the expressway, two gas stations and a McDonald’s but it’s something. A chance to stretch her legs, to breathe real air, and to get some space for herself.

A moment’s respite as she searches the aisles of the gas station for some sort of snacks, two cokes cradled in her arm as she compares the prices between a shareable size chocolate bar and two individual ones.  

It wasn’t bad when she really thought about it.

Once they started talking things were easy, not the best car ride of her life but - 

It was something. 

Not as terrible as she had predicted it might be. 

Not too terrible at all. 

“Ma’am?”

She jerks her head to the cash register at what is clearly meant to be a call for her attention, as she and the elderly cashier at the only two people in the station. 

“Your boyfriend on pump eight has some change, if you want to use that on your pops?”

Correcting the gas station attendant doesn't seem important, not when she looks out the window at when Benvolio has finished pumping gas. Returning his half wave when their eyes meet.

“That'd be wonderful,” she says, heading up to the counter with the two treats and cokes.

While ringing her up the attendant asks, “Where are two you heading?”

“Vegas.” 

“Getting married?”

It's a sort of joke. She can tell when she looks up at the attendant, way he smiles in that sort of old grandfatherly way. 

“Something like that.”

“Good luck to you two,” he says, “Look like the sort of kids that deserve a happy ending.”

“I-” she stops unsure of how to respond to that.

Unsure if she even agreed with him.

A happily ever after had never really been in the cards for her life.

“Thank you,” she says, because it feels right, and, “How much do I owe you?” because she doesn't want to think about what those words mean. 

“It's on the house.”

“Are you sure?”

He nods once more, “I remember what it's like to be young and in love.” 

“Thank you,” she says, because it's all she can manage. 

She steps out of the store back into the open air, the summer heat taking its toll on her, but Benvolio is there sitting on the hood and grinning at her.

“We need to get back on the road?”

“I don't eat in the car,” he says, before patting the spot beside him, “Come on, Capulet, live a little.” 

She takes the spot next to him, against her better judgment, handing his share of the snacks over. 

“Only twenty-one more hours to go,” she says, sitting there beside him on the hood of the car.

“Counting the hours, are we?”

 

* 

 

It’s a small thing, but she’s learned by now that it’s the little things that count, the little things that make all the difference.

This time she doesn’t turn up the music when they get back in the car.

She lets it remain a low drone in the background.

And she talks to him.

And he talks back

And it makes the time go by faster.

 

*

 

“What are you doing?”

“Getting off the expressway.” 

“But the GPS says-”

“We have to eat some time,” Benvolio points out.

Which is true, technically. 

“We do not have time to stop,” she says, because they don’t because Romeo and Juliet have at least a couple of hours of a head start on them and if they were really going to stop this wedding then they needed to keep going. 

“Capulet, I need coffee and to get out of this car or I will die, and where will that leave you,” Benvolio asks, already moving into the other lane.

“I’d roll your dead body out of the car and take over driving obviously.” 

The noise he makes it half offended, half laugh, and when he looks over at her it’s with a look that is both a challenge and fond at the same time. How does he manage to get his face to look that way she’ll never understand.

“Well in that case let me just slow down so you can push my dying body out properly.” 

“Please,” she replies just as sarcastically. 

“You know I don’t like eating in the car,” Benvolio says, and she knows why, even without him being willing to say it and explain it. Juliet’s message before had made that clear, and she’d managed to avoid the topic so far, but… 

“I suppose, but we have to be quick.” 

“Quick is my middle name.”

“Well, that must be disappointing then.” When he glances at her with a slightly confused look, she adds, “For the ladies, of course.”

“Did you just make a joke?”

“I’ve been known to make them.” 

He does this sort of thing. Not a real laugh, not properly, like he’s forcing himself to. An awkward bark of a sound and she can’t help herself from laughing at it. A real laugh tumbling from her own lips and filling the car with its energy. Energy that seems to change his own tune.

It’s a silly thing to laugh about, but as they pull into the restaurant's parking lot she can’t help it.

She’s needed this. 

“God, Ros-” he says, and she doesn’t correct him. Doesn’t insist on the sarcastic formality that they’ve established.

Instead she just says, “You’re paying for dinner.” 

“That would make this a date.”

“Don’t get your hopes up,” she insists.

Though she lets him jokingly sling his arm over her shoulders as they walk up to the front doors of the restaurant, and she lets him turn down the pretty waitress’ advances, and she doesn’t jolt when their fingers brush reaching for the menu at the same time.

But it’s not a date.

Not really. 

She doesn’t date. 

Let along Montagues.

Even ones that look at her with expressions that even she can’t explain before saying, “Make sure you save room for dessert.” 

 

 

*

 

She falls asleep without meaning to, because it’s dark and conversation falls quiet and Benvolio finally switches his weird screaming music out for something soothing, words that all start to blend together, tunes that sound the same. 

She doesn’t even mean to, but falling asleep is easy.

It’s the waking up part.

What feels like too long and not long enough later, her hand numb from where she had it jammed between her head and the window while she slept. 

She wakes slowly. Stretching her fingers. Trying to work some sort of feeling back into them. 

They’re still driving, still on the road, though it’s dark now and they’re one of the few cars out still casting their headlines on a nearly empty expressway. 

“How long was I asleep?”

Benvolio doesn’t answer her, not properly, “We’re in Nebraska now.” 

Nebraska. 

One state closer to stopping all of this.

One state closer to the end. 

She rubs the sleep away from her eyes, checks her phone for the time and for messages, but Juliet has gone silent on her, the two young lovers either asleep or up to something else. 

“We should stop for the night.” 

“I can keep driving,” he insists, “I may need to stop for coffee, but if I can make it through the night.”

“Pull over.”

“Capulet-” He says it, so different from the way he had called her  _ Ros  _ at dinner. She pointedly does not dwell on that. 

“Either you let me drive or we get a hotel,” Rosaline insists, “I’m not going to have some poor Nebraskan police officer calling my aunt and uncle to explain that I died in  _ Benvolio Montague’s  _ car because he was too stubborn to admit that he needed rest.”

“Wouldn’t that be a headline?”

“Romeo and Juliet would never forgive us for stealing their spotlight.” 

“God forbid,” he agrees, that almost familiar laugh finding it’s way into his voice, as he turns on the blinker to pull the car off to the side of the road. 

There’s a quick shuffle of them changing places, crossing paths briefly in front of the cars headlines, and she can see that the driving has worn on him, just as it’s worn on her. As much as she would like to keep going and catch with with Romeo and Juliet, they’d be no good if they wore themselves out too soon. 

When she slides into the driver’s seat, he’s already there in the passenger seat leaning against the window, just as she had been not too long ago. 

“I’m driving us to a hotel,” she says, with a tone of finality.

“Just be careful with the car it’s-”

“Your uncle’s, I know.”

Suddenly the half sleep haze Benvolio seemed to have been in, is shrugged off of him in a moment as he sits up and stares at her with these wild eyes. 

“How did you know that?”

“I’m not stupid,” Rosaline points out. 

“I never said that you were.”

“You don’t want us eating in the car. You had this hesitant tone when I first asked if you had a car. And Juliet may have recognized the car during one of my snaps back to her.” 

“Fuck me-”

“I’ll be a safe driver,” she insists, “You can relax.”

He mumbles something after that. A half hearted protest, but it’s nothing more that that. Two songs later she glances over to find him already asleep. He looks soft when he sleeps. Innocent almost. All the worry lines smoothed away from his face. 

She turns her gaze away from hm and back onto the road.

Focusing on driving until she sees a sign advertising a motel just off the expressway. 

Benvolio is still asleep when she pulls the car into the parking lot. So she lets him sleep, going inside the motel to get them a hotel room. 

“All we’ve got is one king left,” the person working the front desk says with a look that’s more weary than apologetic, and Rosaline can feel that weariness in her own bones. Going further isn’t an option tonight.

They’ll have to make it work.

She slides her card across the counter and takes the room key in exchange. 

Waking Benvolio up is the easy part. 

He stares at her for a second, half asleep and calls her, “Ros,” in a bleary confused voice that she tries not to let affect her. Before seeming to come back to himself, insisting on grabbing their bags even though he’s yawning and clearly as worn down as she is.

“They only had singles left,” Rosaline says, as she shoves the key in the door, unlocking it for them.

“I’ll sleep on the floor,” Benvolio insists.

As she expected he would. 

“Don’t be ridiculous, there’s more than enough room for both of us.”

 

*

 

The next morning they wake up closer together than they had been when they fell asleep. Rosaline pointedly does not mention it as she slips out of the bed. Pointedly does not mention how nice it felt to have his arms around her.

Instead she just says, “I call first shower.” 

And that’s the end of that. 

 

*

 

Benvolio tilts his phone at her, “That look like Nebraska to you?” 

It’s a joke. 

He’s teasing her and he’s got this silly grin on his face, while makes him look absurd - as if the aviator’s pushing his hair away from his face already hadn’t been a bad enough look. 

She takes a long sip of her coffee before answering, “It’s too early for this nonsense.” 

“Nonsense,” he repeats faux scandalized, and this time when she looks up he’s snapping a photo of her. No doubt she looks like a mess, just woken up, her hair thankfully in braids so there’s none of the sticking up nonsense that Benvolio has going on, but she’s not wearing make up and wearing an old worn hoodie pulled on top of a floral dress and it’s not a look that needs to be preserved for even a ten second SnapChat.

“Delete that,” she says, before taking another drink of coffee.

As if more coffee will make this day more tolerable.

“Too late,” he says, sounding only the slightest bit regretful, and then, “Romeo says hi.” 

She picks up her own phone from the diner’s table at that, opening up the phone to three new SnapChats from Juliet. The first two are cute nothingness shots, her face squished  next to Romeo’s in one, and the clock filter in another insisting that it was  _ too early _ . 

Though it’s the third photo that gives her pause. 

She screencaps it quick before it disappears.

Juliet in an oversized t-shirt with a pot leaf on it and the words  _ Blaze Colorado  _ across the front of it. 

Her caption says  _ When in Rome do as the Romans do _ , and Rosaline wants to sigh for eighty years and blame Isabella for being a bad influence on them, because she’s the one who is friends with everyone in the city and happens to know at least twelve different dealers. 

Though for once she doesn’t mind because - “They’re in Colorado.”

Benvolio has a work full of hash browns halfway to his mouth but he stops, his fork hovering there in the air, and asks, “How do you know?”

“Here.”

When she tilts the phone in his direction she can see the second it dawns on him, his fork clattering back down onto the plate below.

“See,” she says, “Colorado. Not Nebraska, after all.”

“For fuck’s sake, how do they drive so fast?”

 

*

 

They make it to Colorado around midday, and Benvolio stops in front of the  _ Welcome To Colorado  _ sign, a silly grin on his face that she finds herself mirroring back without thinking about it.  

“Tourist photo?”

“We’ll send the best one to them,” Benvolio promises. 

It’s silly and not the sort of thing she usually does, but when she gets out of the car, she has to admit there’s something she likes about it.

She pulls out her own phone to snap a quick photo:  _ We’re coming for you _ . 

Juliet’s reply is not a moment later, a dorky smile, and:  _ Catch us if you can! _

“Rosaline!”

She jerks her head up at the sound of her name. When her eyes meet Benvolio’s she can’t help but smile, an involuntary reaction to the one he is shooting her. 

“This nice couple agreed to take our photo for us,” Benvolio continues.

Gesturing in the direction of two happy tourists, an older couple, a happy couple, a  _ real  _ couple. 

“Our heroes,” Rosaline says, because that’s easier than dwelling on her thoughts.

She goes to stand by Benvolio, and for a second it’s so easy to get caught up in the moment.

They take a generic photo at first, his arm around her waist, the two of them smiling at the camera. 

Then there’s a silly one.

One that Benvolio insists on calling  _ ugly prop photo pose _ , and Rosaline tries not to focus on the way his arms feel holding her in place like that.

They’re joking around with the photos, smiling at the camera, and she doesn’t notice it at first. It happens so quickly, the brush of lips against her temple just for a moment, just long enough for the camera to click and them to switch positions again.

But her mind lingers on that moment.

On that feeling.

Even once they’ve finished taking photos and go back into the car, back on the road again.

She doesn’t fall for people fast. 

That’s Juliet’s thing. 

Or Livia’s thing. 

Or anyone else - honestly, she’s a slow lover. The careful one. The one that thinks twice before saying yes to that date and who nearly cancelles last minute. The one who keeps joking about running away to a nunnery. 

But this is something.

It’s different.

It’s almost twenty-four hours spent together… How many first dates is that? All sped up, into one whole day of being together. 

She’s known Benvolio for a while. Technically, since they were children, but as they got older it was different. Putting the prejudices of their parents aside, they floated in similar circles, though not the same ones. 

She had gotten birthday shots at the bar he worked at once. 

She had ignored his flirtatious jokes at a mutual friend’s halloween party last year.

She had frequented the same coffee shop as him long enough that they’d both become  _ usuals _ .

She knows him.

If nothing else she thought she knew him. 

Another Monague boy. 

But when she flips through her phones, looking at the pictures they took pretending to tourists in a place that didn’t know their names and didn’t know a  _ Capulet  _ from a  _ Montague _ , she can’t help but wonder if she ever really knew him at all before today.

Because the man smiling in that photo with an arm around her waist pressing a kiss into her hair is not the Benvolio Montague she thought she knew. 

 

*

 

She stops caring about being judged at some point.

Sings along to the radio loud and happy.

And he sings with her.

Neither of them really able to carry a tune, but neither of them caring. 

 

*

 

“Ice cream doesn’t really count as dinner.”

“Live in the moment,” Benvolio inists. 

And so she does. 

She tries.

She forgets about everything else, and everyone, and focuses on being here with him. In some town in the middle of nowhere at a pop up ice cream stand. With a man who looks at her in ways she can’t entirely explain. Ways that make her heart beat just a bit faster. 

“You’ve got ice cream on your nose?”

It’s a little.

But somehow that’s all it takes.

“What?”

“Here, let me,” he says, reaching up, his thumb brushing against her nose.

It sends a chill through her.

And when he goes to pull his hand away she can’t help herself from reaching up and stopping him, holding him in place.

She’s not sure who moves first, one of them too, but it doesn’t matter because they’re kissing, and everything feels right. As if this was exactly where she was supposed to be, exactly what she was supposed to be doing. 

It’s been coming since this morning.

A part of her had known it, but it was nothing compared to the sudden awareness.

To having him kissing her and kissing him back and forgetting how to breathe. Forgetting that they're supposed to be a Capulet and a Montague. Forgetting that they’re supposed to be anything other than what they are right now.

Two people, kissing each other, while their ice cream melts between them.

When they pull back for air it seems too soon and she wants to kiss him again, more desperately than she knows how to put into words. 

She’s only stopped when he says, “Hey, Ros, let’s get a hotel room?”

 

*

 

This isn’t a mistake, it can’t be when it feels this right.

When sitting in the passenger seat of the car as he drove them to the motel, unable to touch him, felt like an eternity.

When the first that he does upon getting them inside their room is press her up against the barely shut door and kiss her like her life depended on it. She thinks for a second that it might. That being without this man a second longer might actually kill her.

“Bed,” she tells him when they break apart for a moment.

“Bed,” he agrees, lifting her up and carrying her there.

It’s a sort of breath taking thing. A moment of something that manages to both be hot and absurd at the same time. But it doesn’t matter once she’s on the bed, pulling him down towards her unwilling to stop kissing him for anything. 

They make quick work of their clothes.

Rosaline thankful that she’d opted for wearing a dress, easy to pull over her head, and disregard while he’s there struggling with his pants momentarily.

She doesn’t miss it, the soft sort of awed noise he makes when confronted with the sight of her body. The way his eyes trace over her in wonder, like he’s the luckiest man in the world and can scarcely believe his eyes. 

When their eyes meet, just for a second, it is as though the very earth stops spinning. 

She kisses him, so that she doesn’t have to deal with how it feels to have a man look at her as though she is a masterpiece. 

She kisses him, so she can feel his hands on her. Undoing her bra with ease. Sliding over her skin, down further to where she wants him the most. Holding onto her hips and grounding her in place.

She kisses him, so that she can hear the way he comes undone against her lips, forgetting how to save anything more that the broken desperate syllables of his name.

She kisses him, because she can.

 

*

 

She wakes up in his arms for the second day in a row and this time she doesn’t pull away from him. She lingers there in the moment, letting the morning sun stream in through the windows. Lets herself enjoy the feeling of him beside her. 

How could she have been so blind as to not realize before that this was where they belonged all along?

She’s not supposed to be the impulsive one, and yet, as she kisses him good morning, she finds that she wants to. 

“Ready to go to Vegas?”

“Never been more ready in my life.”

 

*

 

He holds her hand while driving, and it feels right.

The whole thing feels right.

They kiss at a gas station. 

They sit on the same side of the booth during lunch. 

They laugh and talk and live in the moment.

They forget to count the minutes and the miles.

And she couldn’t be happier. 

 

*

 

They stop at a rest stop in Utah. Nearly there. So close to the end of the trip.

She isn’t sure she’s ready for that yet.

Which is why he walks out onto the salt plains, following the wooden path out until where they stop. An endless stretch of white all out around her going on for miles as if into infinity. It’s something that she never would have seen  before, that if they hadn’t left, hadn’t gone on this road trip together to stop their cousins, she never would have gotten to experience.

This whole trip was really.

Something new and wonderful.

Not a bad idea that started from a worse idea.

But perhaps the best idea she’s ever had, it only took her this long to realize it. 

“I wish I could paint this,” Benvolio says.

And she turns to look at him, coming up the path to join her. 

“I would stop this road trip and paint you right here in this moment, make it live forever. Hang it on my wall, so I could look at it every day.”

He’s a romantic.

She’s not sure that she’s ever been the type to fall for a romantic.

A man that says these sorts of things and means them.

And yet, here he is, meaning them so clearly. 

“You could take a picture.”

“You’re worth more than a picture.”

 

*

 

“You know in Utah you only have to be fifteen to get married,” Ben says, casually conversationally, “And to multiple people. We’re lucky they’re aiming for Vegas and not Utah.”

“You’re the worst,” she says, but it’s fond. “Don’t tell them that.”

 

*

 

They make it to Nevada when she gets a SnapChat from Juliet of one of those cheap chapels. 

“Shit,” she says, because they’re close but not close enough and she won’t have this all be for nothing.

Not for nothing, she supposes.

She has Benvolio now, but that’s not the point. 

The point is - 

“Call her?”

“Yeah, okay,” Rosaline agrees. Dialing the number, thankful when Juliet picks up after two rings.

“How close are you,” Juliet says, instead of hello.

Not what Rosaline was expecting but she can go with that, “Less than an hour.” 

“Romeo says to tell Ben to drive faster?”

“What,” she replies instinctively, and when Benvolio wiggles his eyebrows at her in a question she repeats Juliet’s comment.

“Fuck they’re waiting for us,” Benvolio says. “Not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.”

“Feels like a bad thing,” Rosaline agrees.

Right before Juliet says, “You two can be out witnesses, much better than this homeless man Romeo was going to bribe! I’m so excited!”

Excited is not the word Rosaline would use to describe any of this. 

Though she’s still thankful when Juliet says, “I’ll text you the address! Can’t wait to see you!”

The phone is hung up on her before Rosaline can say anything else.

And she stares down at it in her lap for a long moment. 

Waiting for that text to come in.

To change the address on their GPS.

This is.

The end.

They’ve made it.

Now they just had to stop a wedding and they could go on with their lives, back to being the people they were before this trip began. 

She glances over at where Benvolio is driving the car, unsure if that’s even possible anymore.

 

*

 

They make it to the chapel, pull the car into the parking lot taking up two spots and ignoring the blinking light over head insisting  _ weddings in 30 min or less _ . 

There’s not going to be a wedding today. 

Not if Rosaline has anything to say about it. 

Juliet’s face lights up when they enter the chapel and Rosaline almost feels bad about this, about driving across the country to stop her wedding, because a part of her now knows what it’s like to feel young and in love and a little bit reckless.

But one of them has to be the level headed one and Juliet is-

“You’re eighteen.” 

“I love him, that won’t change in a month, in a year, in ten years.”

“You turned eighteen on Tuesday.”

“That’s the only reason we waited this long.” 

She knows that.

She’s known that.

She glances over Juliet’s head where Benvolio is attempting to reason with Romeo with just as little success as she is having with Juliet. 

He meets her eyes for a second and she does get it,

She knows what it’s like to love someone so suddenly and not be prepared for that.

“Alright, you love him. I believe you, but maybe your family would like to be a part of this. They care about you, despite the disagreements we’ve had as Capulets and Montagues, your parents would set that aside for your happiness. You know that. And you deserve that, you deserve the wedding with the princess ballgown and the ornate chapel, not this,” Rosaline gestures at their surroundings, “You deserve so much more than this.”

It’s a last ditch attempt.

Something she wasn’t sure would even work.

But there’s tears in Juliet’s eyes and Rosaline knows. This is it. 

“Romeo,” Juliet says, loud enough to cut across the room. 

Loud enough to draw both of the men’s attentions.

“I want to get married where my family can see us,” Juliet says, “I want the whole world to know we’re in love.” 

She looks away when they kiss. 

Looks at Benvolio instead, at the exasperated yet fond look on his face. 

The way he mouths  _ my hero  _ at her. 

The moment is interrupted by the Elvis impersonator that serves as a minister.

“The wedding fee is non-refundable, so I don’t care if someone is getting married or not, but I’m keeping that fifty dollars.”

“You can keep it,” Rosaline says, for all of them.

Only to be stopped when Benvolio says, “Hold on a second.” 

“Ben, what are you-”

She finds her ability to use words gone as he sinks down onto the floor in front of her. Dropped onto one knee. 

“What do you say, Ros, it’s already paid for. Let’s get married?”

She should say no.

For all the reasons she just gave Juliet and yet -

The only family she had missing really was her sister.

Even if they went back to the Midwest there would be no fancy wedding and ballgowns for a girl like her. 

And when was the last time she got to be impulsive? 

To make a decision and live with the consequences? 

To be young and in love and not care about anything else in the world

“I -” she starts and stops, “Are you serious?”

He nods. “I’ve spent the last three days with you non-stop. They have been by far the best days of my life, and at some point we stopped counting down the hours till we got here, and I started counting up the moments that I got to be with you. Each one sacred. It’s probably too soon to say this, but I think I love you.”

“I think I love you too.”

“Marry me?” 

 

 


End file.
